Another Sunday Night

We celebrated my nephew's birthday last night, and he seemed pretty pleased with the dragon. He opened it, looked at it, and then took off to find a place to hang it in his bedroom. When he takes a gift to his room immediately, it usually means that it's a hit. Last year, my sister and I did a little scrapbook for him with pictures of his grandparents, who are all deceased now. He really only got to know my mom well; my dad died shortly after my nephew's first birthday, and my brother-in-law's parents lived in Massachusetts. When he opened the scrapbook, he paged through it and then took it to his room before even opening his other gifts. I know the scrapbook means a lot to him, so I hope that the similar reaction to the dragon means the same thing.

On a less bright note, I've got two more weeks of work to slog through before the Christmas break. Hurricane Ike really threw a monkey wrench in the semester. Normally, we would be doing final exams at this point, with commencement this coming Friday. Then we would be out of school until right after the MLK holiday. This year, we'll have two weeks out of school. We'll be finishing up the fall term during the first two weeks of January before beginning the spring term at its usual time. I know I shouldn't complain, but the loss of our usually lengthy holiday is a real drag.

I'm still stitching on ornaments and bookmarks. As always, I think I've bitten off more than I can chew. Luckily, in going through some finished items I found some ornaments I stitched last year but never did anything with. I think some of those will make their debuts this year as stocking stuffers for a few people.

My other big accomplishment this week is finishing all of the Twilight books (I know the last three have different titles, but I can't remember what they are). I can't say that I am in love with them, but I also can't say that I dislike them. The biggest thing that disturbs me is the way the main character, Bella, allows herself to be subsumed by Edward, the vampire she falls in love with. For me, her infatuation and single-minded desire to be with him is too much like the infatuations--sometimes dangerous--that many young girls develop on their boyfriends or boys whom they wish would be their boyfriends. I don't think a healthy relationship operates like that.

Off to watch tv and stitch.